Ruthless Empire: Part 2 – Chapter 45

It’s strange how fast things can end.

One moment you’re there, in the middle of your happiest moments, and the next, everything ends.

Not really, though.

It’s been two weeks since everything went down. Since Helen turned out to be a psychopath who had an obsession with me.

Who hurt other women so she wouldn’t hurt me.

Who wrote books so she wouldn’t kill the other women as much as she wanted to.

A part of me died that day. The part that believed in Helen. The part who loved her and felt sorry for her.

As that part died, Cole revived me back to life.

I took my first breath of resurrection the moment after she died.

A death for a life.

We didn’t go to the hospital, though. Frederic brought the hospital to me — or rather, a team of doctors. He made them all sign NDAs that would cost them three generations of intensive labour if they were to disclose anything.

I ended up with a few stitches and a sore, scratchy throat, but that’s not the pain that’s stayed with me.

It’s everything else.

It’s the fact that I didn’t see Cole after that day.

The fact that he’s not answering my calls or talking to me.

The fact that he told me through Papa that he’s moving out until he has to go to university.

The fact that he didn’t let me console him or be there for him.

Even during Helen’s funeral, he nodded at us, accepted my parents’ condolences, and spent the entire day with his arsehole friends. And while I was glad he had someone by his side, I wanted that someone to be me, not Aiden, Xander, and Ronan.

Police procedures didn’t take long to be wrapped up. Frederic worked his magic on all the media play and it was labelled as an accident.

Papa wanted Helen exposed, but Frederic and Mum talked him out of it. He’ll have no chance to stay in politics if he does that.

If he’s known to have been married to a psycho, a serial attacker who threatened his daughter’s life under his own roof, he’ll be shunned forever and our lives will turn into hell.

However, if he’s known to have lost his wife during his campaign due to an accident, he’ll gain sympathy.

“And I’ll pretend to console you,” Mum said. “Then everyone will say I suit you better than that bitch who, by the way, I said was a psycho. I can’t believe she hurt my baby.”

She hugged me to death then. Mum has been hugging me every night and has practically moved back in with us.

Her and Papa’s affection and consolation help, but they don’t close the hole in my chest. They don’t heal the wound that’s been open since that day.

A wound that burns and makes me cry every night.

So today, I decide to close that wound myself.

I go to him.

To the house he moved back into.

The house of ghosts and dolls and blood pools.

Coming back here is the last thing I want to do, but I also didn’t sign up to be separated from Cole.

After putting in the code, I walk in slowly, watching my surroundings as if someone will jump me and jam a needle into my neck.

I stop when I make out his tense back. He appears melancholic, his shoulders drooping underneath his jacket. He’s standing in front of the pool, only, it’s empty now. No blood water or any water.

Several boxes are stacked above each other outside.

Is he moving out? Where to?

I tried asking Aiden how Cole was doing, but that bastard wouldn’t give out any information and I’m too exhausted to plot anything to force him.

“Are you going somewhere?” I stop beside him.

Cole’s gaze snaps to me. His dark green irises appear bottomless, hollow, almost as if they’ve already moved someplace else. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.”

“Then why are you standing here?”

He stares back at the empty pool. “Go home, Silver.”

I barge in front of him, wrap my arms around his waist, and rest my head against his chest, breathing in his scent.

“What are you doing?” he asks without hugging me back.

“You told me to go home. You’re my home, Cole.”

He shoves me away, shaking my shoulders. “I’m not your home. I’m the son of the woman who almost fucking killed you.”

“You’re not her.”

“Maybe I am. I’ve lived my entire life thinking I inherited the fucked-up genes from my father, but it turns out, they were from her. Maybe I’ll grow up to be her.”

“You won’t.”

“How would you know that?”

“Because you shared my loss. You called it our loss, Cole, remember? You told me my pain is yours. You’ll never be her, because you care. In your own way, you care.”

He breathes harshly as if he’s still fighting that notion. That reality.

The fact he’s not his parents. He never will be. I know that for a fact.

“And I’m your chaos.” I smile through the tears pricking my eyes. “So you can’t leave me alone or I’ll haunt you.”

“You’ll haunt me?” he asks with a little smile.

“Yes, I will. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, Cole. I’ve been in love with you since you found me in the park that day and pulled my hair and told me you wanted my firsts. I’ve loved you more through the years, and I hated every time I had to face the reality that I couldn’t be with you.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“That was my way of saying I love you.”

He taps my nose. “You’re so weird.”

“Not more than you. You’ve been a dick to me for a long time.”

“That’s because I wanted you to stay interested in me. To never get tired of me. I beat you in everything just to see that fire in your eyes as you challenged me for a rematch. I beat you to keep you coming back to me.”

My lips part. I didn’t know that. “Really?”

“Really. I might have been in love with you for as long as you’ve been in love with me.”

Tears glisten in my eyes. “Oh, Cole.”

“Moan it. My name, I mean,” he says with mischievousness.

“I love you, Cole.” I sigh.

“Does that mean you’re mine now?”

“I always have been.”

He wraps a hand around my throat and his lips claim mine.